What is best practice

in life-building?
All Nations
June 2014

Your In-basket

You arrive in your

church/NGO/mission zone. Poverty
and need surround you.
You know that God tells you to act
with justice, mercy and compassion.
How do you go about deciding what
to do, and with whom?

Our walk with the poor: eight

principles (Roland)
1.

2.
3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.

Target the poorest and disadvantaged

groups
Build relationships first then activities
Respect and value the story of your local
group
Work for empowered participation
Aim for material self-reliance within a
God-centred life
Adopt an adult educational approach
Adopt a holistic, integrated approach
Work for sustainability

1. Target the poorest

Luke 4: 18-21, Matthew 25: 31-46

The poor are often invisible

Our biases towards the easy, the rich, and the

fit (Robert Chambers)

Differences between government and civil

society

Government has a mandate to the whole of

society
Voluntary sector and faith-based organisations
are better able to target certain groups

2. Build people and

relationships
Activities
PEOPLE
Activities

Projects

3. Value and validate local

stories

People are conditioned by their world view

Survival strategies and local knowledge
Spiritual realities God has been at work
even before the Gospel was proclaimed
Local
knowledge

Facilitation and
technical help

Optimum
solution

Myers: A convergence of
stories
Gods story

The communitys
story
The communitys
story

The programs
story

Our story
From B. Myers, Walking with the Poor

Our story

Traditional project
identification

Identify beneficiary group(s)

Gather data through questionnaires
etc.
Identify and analyse problems
Identify solutions
Identify objectives/strategies

Limitations of problem-based
approach

Lower self-perception

People see themselves as the problem

and solutions coming from outside

This means that people dont take

ownership of the solution

Participatory identification

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)

Participatory Learning and Action
Training for Transformation
Strength-based approaches

Appreciative Inquiry
Asset-based Community Development

Participatory Learning and

Action (PLA) methods

Time line or
history wall
Semistructured
interviews
Focus group
discussions
Transect
walk

PLA methods

Community
Mapping /
diagramming
Problem
scoring or
ranking
Seasonal
calendars
Wealth ranking

Timelines

Key strength-based
messages

Self Confidence

Shared Vision (we agree what we want)

Mapped our Assets

Action Plan (we know what to do now)

Equality of women and youth

(we have done it before)

(we have resources)

20

Define
Define

What
Whatdo
doyou
you
plan
plantoto
work
workon?
on?

Discovery
Discovery
What
Whatyou
youhave
havedone
doneso
sofar
far
(The
(Thebest
bestof
ofwhat
whatis)
is)

Appreciating
Appreciating

Deliver
Deliver
How
Howto
toempower,
empower,learn,
learn,
and
andadjust/improvise?
adjust/improvise?
Sustaining
Sustaining

Positive
Core

Appreciative
Inquiry :
5 D Cycle

Dream
Dream
What
Whatwould
wouldyou
youlike
likenow
now
Envisioning
EnvisioningResults
Results

Design
Design
What
WhatAssets
Assetshave
havewe
wegot
got
Co-constructing
Co-constructing
21

ABCD - Assets Based Community

Development

Help people identify that they have something

to contribute through story telling and a
listening encouraging environment
Help people list and feel confident about
assessing their assets
Getting started now we do not need to
depend on outsiders

22

4. Work for empowered

participation

Unwrap the communitys story

Start small
Encourage the community to control
the programme or activity
Build capacity: empowerment needs
to be learned
Have a bias towards peace power
tends to divide so work for inclusion
(Voorhies, 1996, quoted in Myers)

Levels of Participation
POWER
Local group
controls

Dominant

Local group
initiates action
Partnering
Consulting

Some

Information Sharing
Education
Manipulation

None

5. Work for material selfreliance

Livelihood is the basis of other benefits

Fair Trade
Micro-finance
Structural reform (sometimes)
Debt cancellation

Avoid dependency, or move quickly to

reduce and end it
Work (or ally with others who work) to
change structural injustices and evils

6. Adopt an adult educational

approach

How do adults learn?

Knowledge (head)
Skills (head and hands)
Attitudes (heart)
Practices (hands)

Adult education as a force for liberation

People may need to learn to think for

themselves
Freire again!

Banking education

Problem-posing education

7. Adopt a holistic, integrated

approach

People of most cultures think and act

in a holistic way
No division between social, physical,
mental or spiritual lives
Holistic practice is Scriptural:
Jesus is the model of holistic
community work

8. Work for sustainability

Financial

Social

Community or group owns the activity and is

committed to building it

Institutional

Costs of activity or programme can be met after

outside funding ceases

Capacity to manage the activity

Environmental

Resources are being used sustainably and not

depleted

The Ideal

- just you and the group

The Reality
Government
Your
organisations
head office

Other groups
and NGOs

Donors

Your
sending
church

Team
members

Rebels

Resisting a managementdominated programme

There is always pressure from donors

and NGOs for the packaged project
Recognise and resist this pressure
The final programme is usually a
compromise between the ideal
open-ended process, and the
demands
of the donor